The recession might be biting hard in Britain, but elsewhere in the world, things are clearly booming. The city of Stuttgart is so gung-ho about the €7bn redevelopment of its central railway station that it can afford not just to go ahead with the ambitious new plan designed by Dusseldorf-based Ingenhoven architects, but to demolish a large part of the existing historic building, a masterpiece by Paul Bonatz and Friedrich Scholer completed in 1928. As recently as 2009, Unesco was considering listing this magnificent building as a World Heritage Site.

The new design by Christoph Ingenhoven's team appears, superficially at least, to be rather fine. Well, have a look at this creamy Deutsche Bahn propaganda film (it's in German, but the visuals speak for themselves).

The trouble with this "Stuttgart 21" scheme is that it not only requires the demolition, starting this week, of the south wing of Bonatz's station, and the felling of 200 trees in the adjacent Schlossgarten, but it reduces the historic concourse to a meaningless architectural void, because all the important activity will take place below ground. Passions are running high: on the night of 12-13 January, 2,000 police were drafted in to clear protestors from in front of the south wing – although a recent referendum suggests that a narrow majority of local people want the project to go ahead.

A far distant fight, two millennia before the railway age – that of the 52 BC Battle of Alesia, when the Roman army under Julius Caesar defeated the Gauls – is commemorated in the fascinating Alesia Museum, Burgundy, which will open to the public on 26 March. Designed by Paris and New York-based Bernard Tschumi Architects, the cylindrical, timber-clad building rises from the spot where Caesar's army gathered. Inside, visitors will see interactive displays contextualising this critical battle. A second circular building, crafted in stone and also by Tschumi, will follow in 2015; set higher up, where the Gauls had their fort, this will house artefacts unearthed from the ancient battlefield.

While the Tschumi buildings are designed to be a subtle intervention in the rural Burgundy landscape, the design and construction company Capita Symonds has announced outlandish designs this week for the Kampala Tower, a 222m-high commercial phallus rising proudly from a new public square in Kampala, Uganda. The 60-storey tower will be the tallest in Africa – although it could just as well be built in Kowloon or Kuala Lumpur. Another country that is apparently booming in terms of new construction is New Zealand.

One architect you might think immune to recession or planning controversies is Frank Gehry. This week, however, Gehry's proposals for a memorial to Dwight D Eisenhower, 34th president of the United States and, from December 1943, Supreme Allied Commander in Europe ("Ike" oversaw the liberation of western Europe that took place with the D-day invasion of France in June 1944), have made the news because the Eisenhower family feels that the architect has underplayed the president's role as a war leader.

Frank Gehry's proposed memorial to Dwight D Eisenhower focuses on his roots in Kansas, not his role as a war leader. Photograph: AP

Gehry's design is for a memorial park in Washington DC framed by large metal tapestries showing scenes from Eisenhower's roots in Abilene, Kansas. Clearly, Gehry has picked up on Eisenhower's famous quote when he said, at the height of his career, "the proudest thing I can claim is that I am from Abilene." Susan Eisenhower has told AP that "Just about everybody on the [Washington] Mall had humble origins. But, you don't get to the Mall because you had humble origins. You get to the Mall because you did something for which the nation is grateful."

The memorial, and the Mall, are not far from Washington's Union Station, Despite a rollercoaster history over the past five decades, the magnificent station remains intact. Perhaps Stuttgart could learn from Washington, or perhaps from Eisenhower's beloved Abilene, where the local station has certainly seen more productive days.